Luke
15:11-32
“The Open
Arms of the Father: What God Is Like”
Last Sunday I told an embarrassing story about myself—how
coming home from
There is a little bit more to that story. In my absence, that Saturday a pretty busy
day for our family. Emily and Rachel
each had a party or Scout meeting to go to, and Carolyn things to do. And the schedule all came to a head about
The only thing is, with my little ‘detour,’ it became clear
to me that I wasn’t going to be home by
There is a poem by Samuel Smith in which Jesus tells the
story a different way.
Listen:
Returning home,
greeted
by his father’s
grave,
his elder brother
master
now
of flock and field,
the prodigal
passes by.[1]
I think that’s absolutely right. If someone like the elder brother is in
charge of things, what’s the point in coming back? Why even bother to say, “I’m sorry?” No, we come back because we know, or at least
we hope, there’s grace on the other end.
Who knows why, like the prodigal son, we go away? Who knows why we break our parents’ hearts,
quarrel with our siblings? Who knows why
we cut ourselves off from our own children, why we lash out at people who have
been our friends? Who knows? Some of us are so vulnerable, so wounded
inside that we feel like we have to beat everybody away to keep ourselves safe. Some of us feel empty inside, and try to fill
that emptiness with all kinds of new experiences, not even noticing how those
experiences hurt others and ourselves.
Some of us feel trapped in relationships and can’t think of any way to
get out but to hurt someone. Who knows
why we go away, leaving the wreckage behind us?
And of course there’s more than one way to “go away.” The older son in Jesus’ story never
physically went anywhere, but there still developed a great distance between
him and his father. Outwardly the older
brother’s was not a bad, sinful life—he was dutiful, reliable. But there was no joy in it! Instead of being grateful for all the good
work he got to do and being thankful that he got to see his father every day,
he grew full of resentment. In the words
of Gerrit Dawson, he had a “feeling of bondage to responsibilities.”[2]
Who knows why we go away, or why we stay and let there be
such distance between us and the ones we love?
Perhaps, though, the most interesting question isn’t why
people go away, but why we come back. Half
way through the story, when the money is gone, the women have moved on, and
he’s reduced to eating pig slop, the prodigal son, it says, “came to
himself.” He came to himself. He suddenly realized that he was not really
the person he had been acting like. He
wasn’t really someone who eats pig slop.
He wasn’t really someone who spends his money on prostitutes. He wasn’t really someone who disrespects his
father. Oh, he had done all those
things. But that’s not who he really
was. Somewhere deep down inside he knew,
or vaguely remembered, that he was a beloved child of the father.
Why do we come back?
Why do we come back to the God we’ve tried to ignore all these
years? Because we know, or vaguely
remember, that we are children of a God who loves us no matter what. Why do we come back to the people we have
wounded or who have wounded us? Well,
we’re only likely to do so if we have hope there’ll be grace on the other
end.
In Dostoyevsky’s great novel, Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov has murdered an old woman and
feels no remorse. He is a entirely
unlikable character, yet through it all one woman, Sonia, somehow continues to
love him. She even follows Raskolnikov
to
For a long time Raskolnikov wouldn’t have anything to do
with her; she meant nothing to him. Then
he falls ill and he’s in the hospital for several weeks. Still Sonia tries to visit him, but she’s
only allowed stand a minute and look up
at the window of the ward. Gradually he
recovers, and one evening he feels strong enough to go to the window. He looks out and sees Sonia standing there,
apparently waiting for something.
Dostoyevsky writes, “Something stabbed him to the heart at that
minute.” He realizes that while he’d
thought he was alone in his suffering, Sonia had been coming every day to wait
for him.
When they finally meet again, Raskolnikov flings himself at
her feet. He weeps and throws his arms
around her knees. Sonia has outwaited
his self-absorption until love broke through him at last. Because someone has waited for him, he is
able to reconnect to his life and come to himself.[3]
The moral of Jesus’ parable is that there is One who waits
for us. However long we go away, however
joyless and resentful we become, there is One who stands and waits for us,
looking up at our lonely windows. Until
our hearts are stabbed, until we come to ourselves, and we turn towards
home. Someone is waiting for me! And my shame will not be answered with blame
and my resentment will not be held against me, and my having driven to
And that, my friends, is what God is like. I promise.
See, if the prodigal believes that someone like the older brother is in
charge, he’s probably never coming home.
We can slop the pigs a long time if we don’t believe there’s anywhere
else to go. We can work joylessly and
resentfully the rest of our lives if we don’t believe the Father wants us to be
happy. But God waits for us—for you, for
me--with open arms and a forgiving heart.
That’s what God is like. I
promise.